Christopher Rowe

For the first time since arriving in Hanoi both Michelle and I enjoyed a sleep in, and a relaxed breakfast at the hotel, the feelings though were bitter sweet, for as much as we were able to have a leisurely morning for a change, rather than hitting the hustle and bustle of tours and day trips exploring Hanoi, today was the day we were departing for the airport, getting ever so closer to returning home.

Our Vietnam trip was quickly becoming a memory, ahead of us lay the check in at the international airport and our two day stopover in Kuala Lumpur before returning home.

We were quickly met with confusion on arrival to Hanoi’s international airport caused by the number of domestic signs around the place. Since when does an international airport have domestic gates? Vietnam has a separate airport for domestic?!

I turned to walk out of the airport to confirm with our hotel transfer that they had dropped us off at the correct airport. No sooner had I turned around I saw the vehicle drive off in the distance. A taxi driver seeing my confused dismay came over to offer assistance and reassured me that we were at the correct airport.

I surrendered to the fact that for some reason or another this airport had domestic gates, and since we were flying international it made logical sense to me to only pay attention to the international signs.. this led on to our second confusing moment… where the hell was our check in counter for Malaysian Air? After roaming the entire stretch of check in counters I came across an information desk which informed me that Check In for our International flight to KL was at ‘Domestic Check In Counter 1 – 4’ – of course, that makes perfect sense now doesn’t it?

What seemed like an eternity waiting in line to reach the checkout counter we finally made it to the front of the line, where we soon learnt that our flight had been delayed by an hour. I didn’t see this as a big deal at the time, sure it means one less hour in KL and a later arrival time, but at least we were at the correct airport, at the front of the check in line and given free lunch coupons as compensation for the delayed flight. Michelle and I quickly checked in our luggage and collected our boarding passes, to both our surprise our checked in luggage came in at 7kg under the maximum permitted amount… time to pass through immigration and get our free feed

With the immigration counter in sight we made our approach only to be stopped less than a meter from the emigration counter to have our hand luggage weighed. Knowing for international flights each passenger is allowed a carry on piece between (7 and 10kg) I didn’t see this to be a problem. Much to our shock, and that of the passengers behind us who were also pulled aside the onboard weight was only 5kg! Michelle and I were both well and truly over with a combined weight of 18kg. The Malaysian Airlines representative then proceeded to tell us that we had to check in our on board luggage – and that is when the shit hit the roof. We all strongly protested, not only was the check in line slower than hell, but there was a very good reason why the items in our carry on were not checked in; they contained breakables and other sensitive electronic equipment. United we all stood our ground with her in protest, watching helplessly as other arrivals slipped past her with notably heavier carry-on’s. Finally, feeling she was about to be overrun by angry passengers (which she was – we attempted a runner) she finally called her supervisor. The supervisor arrived and began dishing out the same spiel, it wasn’t received well. Finally he yielded and made an exception and we all passed through immigration flustered and furious with the situation. Seriously, 5kg for hand luggage?? Even Jetstar (the budget of Qantas give you more hand luggage weight)

The free lunch mounted to no more than a hotdog and coke which would have been okay had it been any good. We both ended up with very upset tummies after that… but I was planning to reconcile this by drinking the plane dry of scotch and coke… which would have been fine, hadn’t the flight run out of Coke / Pepsi after my first drink…

So all up.. not incredibly impressed with the Malaysian flight from Vietnam to KL, but on a brighter note have gotten stuck into a new book – set between 1930 – 1945 following the events of Russia’s involvement of World War II, ‘The Bridge to Holy Cross’.